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Forced Cremation of Covid Dead in Sri Lanka Further Marginalizes Muslim Community

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

…navirus.” As of December 10, 2020, there have been 146 Covid deaths in Sri Lanka with a disproportionate number coming from the Muslim community; despite making up less than 10% of the population, Muslims account for nearly half of the reported deaths. A Muslim leader in Sri Lanka informed the authors that the number is actually higher, and that 82 Muslims have died, with over 70 cremations. The cremation of the victims was carried out by the stat…

How Not To Defend Atheism

By Vlad Chituc

…llion atheists in the U.S., a full 26% of the country. The most charitable number I could find was from Gallup, putting the number of Americans in 2014 who say they don’t believe in God at 11%. To make things frustratingly worse, other atheists have been calling Silverman out for falsely inflating the number of atheists for more than four years. And last year, I specifically asked Silverman if he would stop reporting the stats on “nones” as being…

Dutch Treat: Betsy DeVos and the Christian Schools Movement

By Peter Laarman

…e piece of reporting by Kristina Rizga. Rizga visited the small city of Holland, MI, where young Betsy Prince attended Holland Christian Schools. Her father, Edgar Prince, whose hatred of unions was passed along to Betsy and brother Erik (yes, that Erik Prince of Blackwater notoriety), had struck it rich in auto parts manufacturing. Betsy made a very Dutch dynastic marriage when she wed the son of Richard DeVos, the Amway co-founder said to be wor…

Marriage equality and ‘the end of Catholic Ireland’; Gambian Prez vows to slit gays’ throats; Colombian govt affirms support for marriage and adoption; global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…after a win seemed likely — looms large… Until recently, the leaders of Ireland’s Catholic Church had done little more than pass a formal declaration in December opposing the referendum. The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, took a more forceful tone early last week, which he said was in response to criticism from the conservative Catholic press that he “had ‘confused’ the press” with his “attitude to the referendum and had given constant sol…

Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

By Chris Stedman

…India) than people who self-identify as atheists… A possible (partial) explanation for this failure, supported by the data noted above, is that many (online) atheists don’t believe they have a strong moral obligation towards relatively anonymous or distant others, or don’t feel the pull of such an obligation even if they believe they have it (or think they believe they have it). Stangroom also noted another recent study that asked whether respond…

RD News Round-Up—Oct.14, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…C [National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce] and that his seat on the board will not be replaced. McDonald’s also said that the company has no plans to renew their membership in NGLCC when it expires in December.”…

Catholic Church Bans Gay Film: This Week’s Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Catholic Church was a dominant owner of movie theaters? AFP offers some explanation: The large number of Italian cinemas owned by the Church are a legacy of the days when every parish had its own cinema and local priests controlled projections, regularly cutting sections of films they deemed unsuitable for parishioners. Most of these cinemas are now rented out to operators who do not have to be religious but do have to sign a contract which, accor…

Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…l I could no longer live with it. Then, one day while I was talking on the phone in a dark room, just like that, I shed my belief in a literal “first couple.” Strangely, I don’t remember who I was talking to or what the conversation was about, but all at once I understood and it felt great. Yet my childhood belief had provided protection for me and had given shape to my understanding of God and even of myself, and what did I have to replace it wit…

Crisis in Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’

By Frederick Clarkson

…killing its own people defiantly. This is ethnic cleansing, to grab up the land and its resources by driving out and killing the people of Nuba who are rightful owners of the land. If I were not here in the United States, I might be in a grave in Kadugli by now, out behind our looted and burned-down cathedral. By the grace of God I am alive. My people are being hunted down house-to-house, arrested, tortured, and bombarded by their own government….